


Critically Disdained

by JokerGothNerd



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Black Books AU, Books, Bookstores, Crazy, Drinking, F/M, M/M, No beta we kayak like Tim, Smoking, lighters, the little book of calm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JokerGothNerd/pseuds/JokerGothNerd
Summary: Oswald Cobblepot runs a book shop, though his customer service skills leave something to be desired. He hires Jeremiah Valeska as an employee. Edward Nygma runs the shop next door. What could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon/Leslie Thompkins, Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Critically Disdained

**Author's Note:**

> I own no rights to Gotham and its characters, nor do I own any rights to Black Books or any of its characters.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald has to deal with his accounts, Edward has no idea what he’s stocking, and Jeremiah hates his job.

Did you know that every year the number of books sold is lower than the last? Yet, somehow, a few shops seem to make it work, making enough for a living. Down in the dingy streets of Gotham, among the rich aristocrats and those stuck forever belonging to the Narrows, was a book shop, situated almost in the middle of the two extremities. Cobblepot Books lived next to The Emporium, the owners of which were Oswald Cobblepot and Edward Nygma, respectively. And this is where our story takes place...

“I don't know, Sal. You're an accountant,” Oswald whined into a telephone. He sat at the back of his book shop, attempting to ignore the customers throughout the small store. This was, of course, until one rather rude man - complete with the posh accent, tailored pinstripe suit, and the cravat - wanted all the attention. He almost reminded Oswald of himself.

“These books-” said the man, standing in front of Oswald, who continued to ignore his customer; how he hated people and society.

“Yes, I know.” The owner kept at his conversation, not even acknowledging the other.

“Hello?”

“I'm not sure…”

"Hello there! Excuse me! I just wonder if-” at the third attempt of gaining Oswald’s attention for a moment, the owner reached over his desk, grabbing a stack of yellow post-it-notes and a black marker. Without hesitation, he scribbled down the words ‘ON PHONE’, slapping it to his own forehead. This seemed to stop the man in his tracks.

“It'll be different this time. Honestly. The accounts are in order. Okay. I'll see you in an hour. Okay. Bye,” Oswald ended the call. Despite his blatant misery, it would stop no one from carrying on their business in this city. 

“Those books, how much?” the man finally asked, pointing to a set of eight books, each coated in some sort of material.

“Hm?”

“The leather-bound books. They're real leather? I have to know because they have to go with a sofa. Everything else in my house is real,” after the explanation, Oswald wanted to ask why he had no imaginary objects, but his head hurt from the hangover, “I'll give you two hundred.”

“Two hundred what?”

“Two hundred dollars,” the man paused. What a strange question.

“Are they leather-bound dollars?”

“No.”

“They won't go with my wallet. Next!” Oswald shouted, not even changing the dull expression of ‘I-could-not-care-less’ in the surrounding atmosphere. The rude man stormed off, muttering obscenities to himself, passing the next man, who had crashed into the other on his way past.

“Hello! I need The Little Book of Calm, do you have it? I'm late for work,” said the next customer, far too quickly for anyone’s brain to catch up with immediately. The man in front of Oswald’s desk was more of a boy, mid-twenties, maybe? The glasses and suit made it obvious he was from the richer areas of Gotham, but there was no time for analysing clothing. Oh, and the poor creature was ginger. Sound like anyone we know?

“Er, is this it?” Without standing up, Oswald swivelled his chair around and reached for the nearest book, titled ‘Tanks’. How ironic.

“No, no, it's just too big, too big. Little, just little-”

“This one, this?” the irony continued, as the store owner held up a copy of ‘War’. This only increased the panic currently occupying the customer.

“No! No, calm. The Little Book of Calm.”

“Er, this?”

“That's the one! Yes!” Fucking finally. As a side note, Oswald knew precisely what he was doing, which was giving the man a larger probability of having a panic attack.

“Two-fifty. I'll just get you a bag,” Oswald spoke the last bit just as the man had placed some coins on the desktop, ducking down to try and find a plastic bag that would contribute to the pollution in Gotham, as if the smog wasn’t enough.

“No, no - no bag, just the book!” the customer begged, not being able to reach it since Oswald was still holding the tiny book. It wasn’t called ‘little’ for nothing.

“I'll do you a receipt.”

“No, that's fine!”

“It's broken,” Oswald told him, moments after prodding the till only to have no response, “I'll write one. Little-” he began to instead, very slowly, write out the words on an equally tiny piece of paper.

“I'll do it! Book of Calm, two-fifty,” the man didn’t even attempt to write the words, instead choosing to scribble, he grabbed the book, and began to read out loud, “Thank you. ‘Let-let-let go once in a while, you are a loose lily floating down an amber river.’ Sorry. I hate my job.” And with that, the man ran off, presumably to get to the job he hated so much.

“What a strange man,” Oswald muttered to himself. He looked around the shop, people seemed quite content with speculating over whether or not to buy a wad of paper with ink dribbled down the pages. Sometimes, he didn’t understand the love of books some people managed to live with - he himself was instead happy with the fact he could drink and smoke all day. It was heaven. And to make things even better, he controlled what time he opened and closed; no early mornings for Oswald Cobblepot.

“Right, the shop is closed! Everybody get out! Time to go home! Come on!” He was now ushering people out of the small door with a broom in one hand and a megaphone in the other, yelling through it as though he were a PE teacher trying to communicate with a group of students over a large area of astro-turf.

“It's only a quarter to three,” one old lady complained, struggling to get out of the door fast enough.

“Yes, but it's my shop! Come on, go home! Bye-bye!”

“It's hardly fair!” another shouted.

“It's not fair at all. Get out!” After all, he had better things to be doing, things he could pay someone else to do because the whole process was incredibly tedious.

“I expect better service.”

“Expect away. Bye-bye! Come on, you time-wasting bastards! Back on the streets! Goodbye! Thank you! Bye-bye-bye! Back to reality. Thank you!” Without a second’s thought, he slammed and locked the door. Oswald didn’t want the scum of the streets returning anytime soon. And then he remembered he needed to unlock that door to go and see his neighbour: Edward Nygma.

* * *

“Oswald, do you want this?”

Mere seconds after Oswald had limped through The Emporium’s door, Ed was already badgering him: as per the usual. Edward Nygma was Oswald’s only friend in Gotham, they’d known each other for many years, and learned even more about each other every time they started drinking - so at least twice a day. Ed was renowned for his sparkly-ass suits and his love of the colour green. Like a snake. Or envy.

Edward had shoved an object towards Oswald, it was a purple and spherical… something. “What is it?”

“It's a thing,” Edward answered, wide eyes, no idea what else to say.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“What does it do?” Oswald inquired, he had a strange feeling that Ed knew as much about the item as he did. This wasn’t the first time Edward had tried to sell Oswald something that he had no clue about, and to make this worse, Oswald usually bought whatever it was. But not today.

“It's very in.” Edward’s posture and voice, unchanged, now gave the impression of a startled field mouse.

“You don't know, do you?”

“It's very now,” Ed refused to give up his goal until now, this was the last go. His shoulders fell slightly, yet he was persistent in refusing to let go of the mysterious object.

“Will you mind the shop? I have to see Maroni, my accounts need doing.” Oswald even bothered sounding needy; he and Ed looked after each other’s shops at least once a week. This was primarily due to hangovers and going out the shops for booze and fags.

“Will you get an assistant so I don't have to keep doing this?” Edward had been badgering him for months about this. Oswald could barely look after himself, Ed was usually the one to have to take care of him (trust me, he didn’t mind), “Okay, but you have to do the same for me the day after tomorrow.” The sudden change in attitude sparked something.

“Okay. Why?”

“You know Lee? They're inducing the baby and she's asked me to be birth-partner,” Edward sounded very proud of himself at this statement, like a small child given the slightest bit of authority.

“Ugh. Why isn't Jim going?” Oswald questioned. Lee and Jim weren’t so much as friends, more like acquaintances of Oswald’s, unlike Edward who was good friends with Lee. Jim… well, Jim saw them as unfit to be part of society, and so put up with them for his wife’s sake. 

“You know that he's trying to get out of his army base, he doesn't think he'll be there in time. I'm the only other person Lee trusts.” Yes, Oswald was well aware that Ed and Lee were good friends (despite how Lee is only in this chapter), and how Ed used to have a crush on Lee. He wasn’t jealous. Nope. Not at all.

“You're the only person I trust. She has picked someone trustworthy,” Oswald chuckled, trying to cover up something he wouldn’t say unless completely smashed. “There'll be a lot of blood and shouting and-”

“No, I'll just get drunk. In fact, she'll be on drugs, I'll be drunk: it'll be just like the old days,” Ed’s gleeful smile made the other realise that he was totally serious and that Eddie was an excited boy about getting drunk at two in the afternoon - which he could do with Oswald any day of the week.

He didn’t particularly want to her anymore about that woman, and Oswald had a feeling that Edward wouldn’t want to talk about anything else if he stayed. “Okay, have a nice time. Bye.”

“Bye, Oswald.”

* * *

Sal Maroni’s ‘office’ was rather distinct from any other accountants’. Most of the box-room was made up of paper and a sickly shade of beige. At every 60 degree angle, sat a mug, half full of something that could only be described as ‘sludge’. When Oswald had first walked into the room, he hadn’t noticed the horrific stench of nicotine (this was far too normal for him), but he did see the man himself: Maroni. Oswald had known the Cuban for some time, after all, he really didn’t like the idea of even trying to complete his accounts when he could pay someone to do it instead.

“So, show me your new filing system, Oswald,” Maroni asked, picking up a bottle of whiskey.

“This is March to, er the thing,” Oswald reached into his pocket, placing a cluster of scrunched up pieces of paper into three piles and pointing at each. “This is Misc. And the rest are, er Other.”

“Other what? Other backdated weeks, is it?”

“No. Other times. So it goes: This Week, Very Recent, and All Other Times,” he explained, only slightly panicking at how vague this was. Edward could probably explain and organised this much better than he ever could.

“Help me out here, Oswald, what does All Other Times cover?” he tried to get somewhere with this, only resorting to the occasional gulp of whiskey.

“I don't know, Sal!” Oswald decided he wasn’t drunk enough to be doing this right now.

Sal then noticed the fatal flaw in his plan, “This new system is closely modelled on the old system, isn't it?” Oswald hoped he wouldn’t realise, but now Sal had, what was the point in denying it?

“I'd go further than that. I'd say it was exactly the same. Except- No, it's the same. I just sort of lied on the phone, Sal. I lied.”

“Well- Did you hear that?” The way Sal asked Oswald about this was incredibly suspicious. As suspicious as coming home to find the dog looking guilty, and the living room covered in feathers with two empty pillow cases. Suspicious...

Oswald shook his head, leaving Sal to continue as he swallowed three - non-descript - pills.“Oh, nothing. You're lucky I'm so accommodating. Other accountants might-”

And then the phone rang.

“Hello? Yes, Harper. Oh, right. Okay, yes, mm-hm.” He put it back down, immediately shredding documents as he explained, “I've just got to pop off. Yes, see you soon, all right? Bye.” He leapt for the fire escape, almost jumping down the steps. What the fuck? Oswald could only speculate what had happened, at least until a loud crashing noise came from behind the door. A large group of cops entered, frantically looking around.

“He's always one step ahead! The cat has left the basket. The cat has left the basket.” They followed the same route as Maroni. The amount of cops that ran after the accountant was quite impressive, it was like watching 20 clowns getting out of a small car. Whilst he waited for the law to move from the doorway, Oswald contemplated what Maroni could have done to be such a wanted criminal.

* * *

Jeremiah Valeska hated his job. As an accountant, his life was boring and stressful, more so than that one year he worked in a bank (at least they had monthly hostage situations and robberies). You may ask why he didn’t just find a new job, if he hated it so much, and I shall tell you why. One, it was rather difficult to find a new job in this world, as technology replaces people everyday. And two, he was looking for a new job. Literally, sitting at his desk, searching for new jobs on the internet. Apparently, ‘hitman’ was the most wanted job at the moment.  
“You. Jeremiah. What's that you're eating?” Oh, crap.

Maybe he should become a hitman, get rid of his boss to begin with. The slimy prick could go fuck himself, for all Jeremiah cared. “Soup?”

“Yes,” his boss said, with that wide eyed expression combined with leaning forward, where someone expects you to know something every obvious, despite you having no clue what they want you to say.

“It's extra-chunky.”

“What's in it?” Maybe it was something to do with not changing his expression that made Jeremiah want to punch him in the throat. Repeatedly.

“Chunks. Should I be doing something?” Jeremiah’s confused voice did nothing, so he just guessed at what it was, and of course getting the point wrong, “I have the Wayne accounts. I would've e-mailed them but I had a lot of clink on the stuffer expander, and, er, the plug went in some Tizer.” He reached down, snatching up a plug dripping with the pink, fizzy liquid as evidence.

“Look, just shape up or ship out, alright?” his boss warned him, dramatically twisting to strut off. What a dick. It was as though he wanted poisoned coffee. Or perhaps a pen through his throat. That was a nice idea… but it was making Jeremiah stressed. Again. Third time in the last hour _alone._ It was time for the Little Book Of Calm, which was proving to be more useful by the moment. He opened it to a random page, reading the words out loud to himself, “‘Visualise the ocean.’”

Jeremiah closed his eyes, thinking about being on a boat in the middle of the deep blue ocean. Sunbeams on his pale skin, only the sound of the waves gently crashing against the boat for him to listen to as though it were a lullaby.

“Right, we've got to get Friday's invoices in!” interrupted Jeremiah’s daydreaming. Life was a bitch.

“Okay, yes. Here I come,” he sighed, picking up his cup of soup and papers. Unfortunately, he managed to knock the Little Book Of Calm into his soup, so when Jeremiah tried to finish the soup in one gulp, he began choking. And his boss was the first to notice.

“What is it?” he asked, suspecting that Jeremiah was slacking off, and only trying to find another reason to sack him.

“It's my Little Book of Calm! I've swallowed my Little Book of Calm!” he shrieked, or spoke as loud as he could while a small book was lodged in his oesophagus. Lest to say, an ambulance was called.

* * *

Ed was still looking after Cobblepot Books when Oswald returned, pushing past the customers without a care in the world. Ed was still going on about that blasted purple ball, talking to a small group of people that had gathered around him, “Is it some kind of bald Furby?” until he saw that the owner was back, “Oswald! How'd it go?”

Oswald stopped in his tracks, turned to Edward, “Sal the accountant, Sal Maroni, the accountant, is a fugitive! I'm not doing my accounts!” he stomped off into the back, presumably to find and drink the first bottle of wine he came across.

“Why?” 

“You can stick it up your arse!”

Ed laughed. He knew it would come to this, and he knew that he couldn’t just let Oswald win this, “Oswald, you'll have to do them yourself. It's easy,” Ed spoke as he focused on the purple ball. He was still no further to figuring out what it was.

“Yes, I’ll give it a go. I'm sure I could muddle along.”

* * *

“WHAT? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! THE WHAT?!”

Anyone who had tried to do their own accounts before, particularly those who aren’t accountants, know the hardship of even attempting such a dangerous feat. Oswald Cobblepot was slumped at his desk, as he was most days, yelling at a few pieces of paper, just about drunk and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Edward’s use of the word ‘easy’ had given him hope; the word ‘Accounts’ had given him nausea.

“‘If you live in a council flat beside a river but are not blind’ WHAT?! ‘What is your mother's maiden name?’ What's her first name?! I just knew her as Mother!” his reluctance to answer some of the questions was overwhelming, however, he wanted to be done with it as soon as humanly possible, “Mother - that'll have to do.” Okay, next: “‘Did your non-returnable outgoings for the first half of the year exceed your deductions for quarterly VAT returns?’” That was too many big words in one sentence, and all Oswald wanted to do was burn these papers with the half-burned cigarette in his hand. OR, he could procrastinate…

~ _One hour later_ ~

“Right, that's all my socks paired. Back to the accounts.” The large pile of paper and cigarette butts had been sat mouldering at a desk. And still were. “Okay.”

None of it made any sense, and they weren’t the only documents that were so difficult to fill out. Ever tried to complete passport forms? That’s why Oswald Cobblepot hadn’t been on holiday since he was very young and still lived with his mother - because she filled out the forms. And had an accountant.  
“‘Did your non-returnable outgoings for the first half of the year exceed your deductions for quarterly VAT returns?’”

This gave him an idea. Oswald reached out for the phone and chose to do something he knew he would regret later. “Hello, Mother? It's Oswald. No, nothing's wrong. I don't need an excuse to call my mother, do I?”

~ _11 seconds later_ ~

“I know, I am, yes. I know. Yes. Yes. I will. I know. Ha. Yes. Yes! I know. Yes. Okay. Goodbye, I have to do my tax!” Oh, how the tables had turned. Because as much as Oswald loved his mother, she could be very overbearing at times, especially since his father passed away. She only had Oswald now, which meant that she wanted him to settle down and start a family. And yes, she was fully aware just how gay he was, unfortunately, this meant that she tried to set him up with any queer guy she could find. Now, back to the taxes.

“‘Did your non-returnable outgoings-’ Thank Christ!” Oswald’s exclamation came from the sound of a knock at the door. He really didn’t care who it was, they could stay forever if it meant he didn’t have to do his taxes.

“Yes?”

Stood in front of him were two men in suits, one holding a briefcase. Luckily, they spoke before he could guess what they could want from him.

“Could we talk to you about Jesus?” Oh wonderful. Oswald would have usually told them to do one, but this wasn’t usually. Like I said, he would do anything to get out of completing his accounts. This was anything. Thank Christ indeed.

“Great! Come in!”, he grinned, gesturing inside. This had to be his lowest moment. Ever.

“What?” they both uttered at the same time, this was most unusual for them. No one really liked them, it was a general thing.

“I'd love to hear about Jesus! Come on in! What’s he been up to?” Oswald inquired, seemingly too curious for anybody’s standards.

“Er, are you sure?” this appeared to stump them.

“Yes! In, in! Come in!”

“It's a trick!” one of them yelled - the shorter one, he noted. Oswald decided to mentally name him Mormon#1, and the other Mormon#2. This meant he’d have to watch how much he drank now, so it didn’t come out as ‘moron’.

“It's just generally people don't say yes,” Mormon#2 told him, explaining their actions.

“I'm not people, come on in, let's talk beliefs! Come in, come in. Grab a pew. Right, let's go.” Oswald lead them into the back of the book shop, where he lived. The back was almost as messy as the front, but with more empty wine bottles. He chose to ignore the small table covered in his taxes in favour of the other table, surrounded by three dusty, but comfortable chairs that really wanted replacing, as there was stuffing coming out from the seams. The two men sat down, both looked fairly pleased with themselves as they leaned back in the chair, possibly enjoying the feeling of being sat down.

“Well to be honest, we've never actually thought this far ahead,” Mormon #2, who appeared to do most of the talking out of the duo, said.

These two men had absolutely no idea what the hell they were supposed to be doing. Mormon#2 had said that people ‘generally’ didn’t let them in. Oswald took this as never, because their reactions to being indoors showed just how long they’d been out in the cold for. Maybe they only did this because they had nowhere to live, and it could get them indoors for a bit.

“It's, uh, it's nice here. Indoors,” Mormon#1 spoke up, glancing at different parts of the room, not caring for the state it was in. This confirmed Oswald’s theory though, neither of them got in from the cold very often. If ever.

Oswald then decided it was probably best to break the silence and get to the point: “So, what's your favourite story about, er, Our Lord?”

They both thought for a moment. Obviously, they’d never been asked this. Oh dear.

“Money lenders, it has to be the money lenders. Chasing them out of the temple,” Mormon#1 rather excitedly told Oswald, the grin on his face wasn’t going away anytime soon.

“It is knock-out stuff. And yourself?” Oswald played along with their glee as he turned to Moron- Mor _mon_ #1. He’d only had two bottles tonight. This was going to be a problem.

“Well, it's all good. I suppose when Jesus rescued the Samaritan,” his thoughtful response proved something else.

“No, that's a story Jesus tells about the Samaritan who helps somebody else.”

“Really? Wow. I like the one where he went to dinner with the tax collector,” said the other.

Never in his life did Oswald think that he would be the one teaching someone else about the Bible. Truth be told, he didn’t believe in any of it, but he put up with it for his mother’s sake, so he respected others beliefs like the decent human being he was. I say ‘decent’, this was the only quality of him that was.  
“And do you have any literature or anything I could look at?” he knew he should have made more of an effort to cover his unsure sounding voice.

“Oh, yes! Those books and magazines! Books and magazines!” one of them - Oswald wasn’t paying attention to which - exclaimed. The briefcase they’d been carrying was opened, and at least that _actually_ had stuff in it. This was going to be a very long evening with these to Morons… Mormons! He meant Mormons.

* * *

“Ah, there you are.”

After swallowing the Little Book Of Calm a few hours previously, Jeremiah had been admitted to the hospital, and was awaiting the doctor’s thoughts on the matter. Now the time had come, Jeremiah was already panicking. After how long it had taken them to come back to him, he’d only had three panic attacks. “Time for my results?”

“It's bad news, I'm afraid, Mr Valeska. The Little Book of Calm is lodged between the small intestine and the pancreas. If it rotates a centimetre left, you'll be dead in seconds,” the doctor read from his clipboard, clearly not understanding the severity of his words and how they would affect his patient. Dickhead.

“Oh, my God.” 

“No, hold on a moment,” maybe there was good news after all, “The other possibility, and this is more likely, is that the Little Book of Calm will move into the renal canal. If this happens, you could live for anything up to ten years, one year, who knows? Because of the massive scarring caused by the book, however, - you could be in great pain during that time. We'll operate tomorrow. There's a good chance you'll survive - thirty percent, I'd say - so try not to worry. As the book itself says, um,” Dr. Dickhead held an x-ray up to the light next to Jeremiah, reading, “‘Whenever you're in a tight spot, try to imagine being marooned on a beautiful desert island.’”

As if his day couldn’t get any worse. How on earth did he manage to swallow that book? Surely it was too big to fit down his throat...

* * *

After two hours of drinking and smoking, Oswald and the two Mormons were stumbling towards the front door, each with a nearly finished glass of wine, and both the Mormons with their hair and ties askew.

“So he said that because no one's without sin, right?” Mormon#2 spoke, leaning against a wall to stop him from falling over.

“Yes, that's what he- But it was hidden,” Oswald cleared up.

“So it's like God and Jesus are the one thing?”

For the last hour, Oswald had been trying to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity. It was like teaching it to a bunch of five year olds. To be fair, it was a weird one. Jesus, the Holy Spirit and God are all one, but they are not each other. And if it wasn’t hard enough, they were all very far from sober, by this bit.

“Yes. Are you sure you won't stay?” he still didn’t want to finish his taxes.

“No, really, we have to go, it's very late,” Mormon#2 told him, but 4am wasn’t that early, right?

“Okay, whatever. Call again though, yes?”

“Oh, yes, yes. Yes, yes,” Mormon#1 (Oswald was focusing very hard on not calling them ‘morons’) agreed. Must be a lightweight.

“Goodbye,” Mormon#2 bid farewell, as the other immediately clung onto Oswald in a hug, letting go of him promptly after. And then they left, leaving Oswald to complete those damn taxes.

* * *

“Oswald? Finished with your accounts?”

Edward’s optimism was far superior to how anyone else’s would be in this situation. He strode in, still clutching onto that purple thing, searching all over it for any clue as to what it was.

“Yes. I've turned them into a rather smart casual jacket,” Oswad replied from the back of the shop, shortly after this, he came walking through and as he said, wearing a ‘smart casual jacket’ made out of his taxes and a lot of sellotape. It was evident from all the scribbling on the paper, that Oswald hadn’t given up at the first step, like Ed thought he would. Instead he laughed.

“Oswald!” shouted Edward, trying to hint at his disappointment, “I mean, it is a very nice jacket, but what about your accounts?”

Oswald limped over to Ed, clearly very hungover and very tired. The closer he got, the closer Edward could see what he’d actually written. He had no idea how to do his accounts.

“I don't know! Will you do them?” Oswald pleaded.

“Oh, you've got that wrong for a start - you divide by ten there. Oh - no, no, no,” Ed’s love of maths and problem solving almost, _almost_ , got the better of him. “I'm not doing this. I have to give all my attention to being Lee's birth partner. Oh! Look, look!” he exclaimed, like a child on Christmas morning, his eyes going wide and pointing to something on the side, “There's something on the side! Fifteen ninety-nine- oh no I wrote that.” To say Edward Nygma was a genius could at times be a complete overstatement. However, from previous experience, Oswald knew that Ed wouldn’t give up until he found out what that purple thing was. A few years ago, Oswald had given him a rubix cube for his birthday. One that Oswald, after many months, had messed up enough that Ed carried it around wherever he went for the next year, until he solved it. Every chance he got, Ed would be staring and twisting that blasted toy. This was going to be an incredibly long week, wasn’t it?

* * *

“Mr Valeska, back with us at last.”

After the surgery, Jeremiah woke up to the blinding lights of the hospital room, feeling oddly… calm. In no way possible he was panicking. All that stress had disappeared and he felt fantastic.

“There's been a complication,” oh yes, the doctor was here, “You see, we went in to remove the book and, um, well, in medical terms, it's gone. To put it another way, it's not there. I don't know how this happened. The only explanation is that you assimilated it into your system, which is impossible. How do you feel?”

Now, as said, this was completely impossible. However, there always was the possibility that Jeremiah had somehow managed to consume the book, and, after all, this was Gotham. 

“Add a drop of lavender to your bath, and soon, you will soak yourself calm,” Jeremiah told the doctor, and never in his life, had the doctor seen someone so zen-like. As I said, this _was_ Gotham. And apparently, Jeremiah had digested the Little Book of Calm and was now repeating the words on the pages. The fuck?

“I'm sorry?” Like I said, the fuck?

“If you want to feel calm, eat more raw fruits and vegetables, yoghurt, milk and seeds,” Jeremiah said, even the atmosphere around him was calm. The doctor just hoped whatever he had wasn’t contagious...

“Er, maybe I should let you get some rest,” the doctor stuttered, he wondered about doing more tests, thinking about asking the Arkham doctors to take a look. This would be one for the books.

“When you rest, you are a king surveying your estate. Look at the woodland, the peacocks on the lawn. Be the king of your own calm kingdom.” He sounded high.

“Uh. Yes.”

* * *

“I've got it!”

“I'm doing them!”

Edward had just burst in, waking up Oswald who’d fallen asleep on his taxes. Both men had accepted that this wasn’t going well, for themselves or each other. But what the hell, it had always been like this. Just the two of them, getting drunk every night and smoking a bazillion cigarettes a day - each!

Edward was holding the purple thing _again_ , and he hadn’t looked up yet. It was a miracle he hadn’t walked into anyone or anything,“I know what this is - it's for giving up sugar.” The way he (finally) glanced at Oswald made the shorter man wanted to laugh. He seemed so certain of himself.  
“Yes, that's exactly what it's not,” Oswald replied, picking up his returns with one hand, pouring a glass of red wine with the other.  
“No, that's absurd, isn't it?” Ed sighed, slumping into his reserved chair next to Oswald’s desk. It really was baffling. Perplexing, even. Something like this was going to make him forget something important, like that thing… what did he have to do today? Never the matter.

There was a rather large amount of silence after this, both men were compelled by whatever they had become occupied by, until: “What's this?” Oswald put his glass down (obviously not caring about the time of 11 AM), focusing on the paper in front of him, “Blah, blah, blah, ‘Exemption clause, ‘person suffering from short or long-term injury or sickness may defer their returns.’ Wait: ‘Person suffering from short or long-term injury or sickness may defer their returns’.” This was it. This was how he was going to deter his returns. Now, if Oswald had been thinking properly, he would have realised that he would have gotten away with using his bad leg as an excuse - a few years prior, he and Ed had gone out drinking, he’d gotten hammered and then there was a bar fight. Oswald was beaten with a chair, which broke his leg. They couldn’t afford to have it set back, and it was far too late now. It was all painkillers and alcohol to dull the aches and memories.

“No, no, give it up, Oswald. You'd have to really cripple yourself. You're hardly gonna do that just to avoid doing accounts. And anyway, you've always got your bad leg. I'm sure they'd take that,” Edward managed to say all of this without taking his eyes away from the strange object in his hands. It was as though it would do something spectacular if he looked away for a millisecond. Idiot.

* * *

Once Edward had left, Oswald decided to leave his tax returns, instead finishing the bottle of red he’d opened ten minutes ago. It was lunch soon anyway, so Edward would be back with two glasses and a freshly-bought packet of the cheapest cigarettes they could find. Before he knew it, there was a man standing in front of Oswald, who placed a small book on the counter to pay for.“This is on special offer,” Oswald swiftly put out his latest roll of burning tobacco.

“Really?” asked the man. He seemed excited, almost.

“Yes, it's free if you break my other leg.”

“Fair enough.” To any normal person, this would have been sadistic, but, as previously stated, this was Gotham. Honestly, if you thought the people in Arkham Asylum were bad, you want to have seen the waiting list of homicidal maniacs/sadists, budget robo cops, angry-nerdy leprechauns, and scary ginger men who got face swap wrong.

“Great! I'll get the hobbling post,” he smiled, reaching underneath his desk, where Oswald brought out two large pieces of wood. Neither of which actually looked like hobbling posts, but if you bashed someone with one of them, it would hurt a bit.

“Wait, I've read this. That's the problem with Wodehouse,” the customer apologised, placing the book on a shelf (great, now Oswald would have to put it back properly) and walking out. Unfortunately, a crazed Edward Nygma ran up to him, wide eyed and pale (paler than usual), “What is this?! Have you any idea what the hell this is?” It was driving him insane. He’d be on that waiting list soon if he wasn’t careful.

* * *

Hospitals: sensible, busy and not filled with lunatics like the asylum. Except Jeremiah Valeska, who, despite not being dismissed, was walking out of that building, still calm and completely zenned out.

 _“Would the birth partner of Leslie Thompkins please report to delivery room one.”_ Oddly enough, as the speaker said this, Jeremiah was walking past delivery room one, where a very pregnant woman was sitting on a bed, sweating and screaming.  
“Where's my birth partner?! I can't do this without my birth partner! Where is he?!” She must have been Leslie. And the woman next to her must have been the midwife. Who looked terrified of the other woman, but that was her job.

“Lee, we can't find him. We've been calling him all day,” the midwife told Lee, holding her hand and speaking softly, as she was supposed to. That was her job.

“When you're feeling under pressure, do something different. Roll up your sleeves, or eat an orange,” Jeremiah stated. He stood in the doorway, confusing both women into silence. He just grinned, and moved on. Out of the hospital. Where there were other real life people.

* * *

Oswald was still sitting at his desk, drawing a spider diagram of all the incredibly peculiar ways he could injure himself, and he was presently on the idea of ‘swan attack’. This was the best he could come up with so far, but he’d failed to think of one thing: where was Oswald Cobblepot going to find a swan in Gotham? In the meantime, Edward had gathered all of the customers, and they were still trying to figure out what the purple-ball-with-a-bit-sticking-out was.

“Is it some kind of fake breast? You know, that dads wear?”

Edward turned to his left, looking at the rather muscle-y man who’d suggested that particular thought. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, for babies,” he expanded, not reacting to the disbelieving look from the lanky enigma.

“Ba- babies?” and then it hit him in the face like a duck on a rollercoaster (look to: Fabio’s collision), “Oh, my God - Lee!” Edward practically threw the object on the table in front of him, snatched his car keys, and legged it out the door quicker than you could say ‘dodecahedron’ after a few pints. In the rush he was in, Edward immediately crashed into someone on the streets.

The man he’d run into was pale, ginger and had a (now wonky) pair of glasses. His choice of clothing made it seem as though the stranger had escaped an asylum. “Be on the lookout for things that make you laugh. If you see nothing worth laughing at, pretend you see it, then laugh.” Edward replied with a perplexed look, and a noise that sounded a bit like ‘what’, but he raced on. He couldn’t leave a friend behind. Even with a lunatic before him, and a best friend desperately attempting to break all of the bones in his body.

* * *

20 minutes had passed since waltzing out of the hospital, and Jeremiah had just had the first incident of the day: a man in a bright green suit collided into him. Some people, eh? When the man ran off, Jeremiah’s gaze followed him, curious as to why he was in such a hurry. That was when the second incident of the day occurred.  
“Oi! Ginger! What you lookin' at?” From in the opposite direction (which makes you wonder why this in particular was asked), three skinheads stood, all with cigarettes, all outside a club - at three in the afternoon. If Jeremiah’s perspective hadn’t been clouded by The Little Book Of Calm, it’s guaranteed that he would never have done this. _He walked over._

“Have you ever noticed a calm person with a loud voice? Try and speak softly once in a while.” This could have been the biggest mistake Jeremiah Valeska had ever made in his adult life. The man in the middle put out his cigarette, aimed, and then his knuckles met with Jeremiah’s nose. Due to his state of mind, he couldn’t react to the searing pain in his face properly. So instead, he reacted quite like Siri if you punched it after it had given you one answer already: “Add a dab of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange and pretend you're laughing at it.” This led all three men linking their fists to different sections of the younger man’s head, mainly out of confusion.

* * *

He had it! Oswald had figured out the best way to hurt himself so he wouldn’t have to complete his tax returns anytime soon. With a red marker, Oswald had drawn a circle of guidance around his left forearm, and on the other hand was an electric turkey carver. Odd choice of weapon, but he couldn’t find where he’d placed his chainsaw. Oswald was about to begin the process when he glanced up. There were still people in the shop. And it would ruin his reputation to have them know Oswald Cobblepot had cut off his own hand to refrain from finishing his tax returns. He could see the headlines now.

The bookshop owner stood up, moving towards the browsing people, “You lot, you better clear off, I have to do a few things I have to-” but he noticed 3 men through the window, “Oh! Skinheads! Perfect!”

* * *

Unfortunately, Jeremiah’s misguided viewpoint from the-book-that-shall-not-be-named only lasted until he blacked out for a moment. The last thing he remembered was being in hospital, before the surgery. So, as you would expect, he was rather bewildered to find three men looming over him, and a throbbing pain in his nose.

“Do you think you're funny?” one of the men screamed at Jeremiah.

“What happened?” He didn’t understand. How had this situation come around? Jeremiah was a sensible man, never would he provoke such ignorant bigots into a fist fight entirely consisting of their fists.

“Looking for another slap, are you?” these primeval twats were never going to give up.

“Another slap?”

Jeremiah’s mind was racing: he was going to be beaten to a pulp. He was 100% sure that there was only a 5% chance of him walking away without another hit. That was until the 5% chance came limping up behind the three men, in the form of a 5’6 man. This wasn’t very reassuring, but Jeremiah could make a run for it. However, he intended to stay and listen to what this man had to say: “Which one of you bitches wants to dance?”

He was as dead as Jeremiah would be if he didn’t move in the next 2.5 seconds.

“Hey, when you're doing the usual sort of threesome of a weekend and the moonlight's bouncing off your heads and asses, is that not confusing?” They just stared at him. Was he looking for a black eye and a broken arm? It sure looked like it. But they weren’t riled up enough just yet. “Right. Do you know this chant? Millwall, Millwall, you're all really dreadful, and your girlfriends are unfulfilled and alienated.” This was the last straw. All three gave him a blow to the face, repeatedly kicking and hitting him.

* * *

“Are you in pain?” were the first words Oswald heard when he awoke. The ginger man he’d saved (and yet failed to realise he had) was leaning over him, eyes wide with fear.

“Not enough! Where have they gone?!” he shouted, trying to get up, only to be stopped by the man. Jeremiah couldn’t be more thankful.

“They got tired and went away. Er, why did you do that? That was so incredible, the way you just kept letting them punch you, and thank you,” he babbled in awe. Oswald sort of stared at him, blood trickling down his face, and his eye blackening by the second.

“I'm injured, I don't have to do my accounts. You're a witness!” Oswald pointed to Jeremiah as he explained, the other man was closing the door, and flipping the open sign to ‘closed’.

“I could do your accounts.”

“What?” After all this fucking time. After being beaten up. After trying to injure himself enough. This was what it had come to.

“I'm an accountant. Well, I was,” Jeremiah reiterated, “It's the least I could do.”

“You mean you could do more?”

“Yes.”

“Could I have a glass of wine?”

“Okay.”

“Right, you get started on that and I'll begin the business of the day,” Oswald uttered out, somehow moving himself behind his desk. Jeremiah followed, ultimately making sure his saviour didn’t fall over. He was aware of the door flying open, but the man who ran in looked oddly familiar. Edward, of course, didn’t look around properly, barely noticing his purple sphere sat on the desk. He reached for the Yellow Pages, scrambling through the paper.

“Car won't start. Cab number, cab number. I’ve got to get to Lee!”

While all of this was going on, Oswald had taken out a cigarette and was searching for his lighter. This was when the inevitable occurred: Jeremiah picked up the purple ball, clicked something, and a small flame came out of the other end. It was a lighter. And Edward had just glanced up, stopping in his tracks.

“You fucker!”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments x


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